NEWS: NOAA Issues First Severe Geomagnetic Storm Watch Since 2005

Short Wave

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🗓️ 10 May 2024

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration observed a cluster of sunspots on the surface of the sun this week. With them came solar flares that kicked off a severe geomagnetic storm. That storm is expected to last throughout the weekend as at least five coronal mass ejections — chunks of the sun — are flung out into space, towards Earth! NOAA uses a five point scale to rate these storms, and this weekend's storm is a G4. It's expected to produce auroras as far south as Alabama. To contextualize this storm, we are looking back at the largest solar storm on record: the Carrington Event.

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Transcript

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0:19.0	Hey Short Waivers, Regina Barbara here with a special report of Shortwave in time for the arrival of a huge
0:24.7	geomagnetic storm this weekend. That's a storm caused by activity on the sun's surface,
0:30.5	like a coronal mass ejection, where chunks of the sun are flung out into space, sometimes
0:36.8	towards Earth.
0:37.8	We have a very rare event on our hand.
0:40.1	The last time that we issued a G4 watch, which is a geomagnetic storm watch for severe levels, was 2005.
0:48.8	Sean Dahl is a project service coordinator with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather
0:55.4	Prediction Center.
0:57.2	He kicked off a press conference about the event Friday.
1:00.0	The agency monitors the sun's activity and this week they noticed a large cluster of sunspots on the surface of our nearest star.
1:07.0	With those sunspots came flares that kicked off this geomagnetic storm Wednesday.
1:12.0	Since then, there has been at least five
1:13.9	coronal mass objections, or CMEs,
1:16.4	pointed towards Earth.
1:17.9	Some are catching up with other ones.
1:20.1	So our level of confidence is high
1:21.8	that we will have an arrival of this
1:23.6	CME or the beginning of these CME's as early as this evening,
1:28.1	eastern daylight time, and later in the evening perhaps.
	...

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